Drones Will Get Smaller, Faster, Smarter, Deadlier, and Available to Almost Anyone

Some things we know are going to happen...which means some of the future really is predictable

Jun 08, 2025

[Ukraine’s recent drone operation] arguably shows a new way of warfare which will extend beyond the military. There'll be organized crime groups looking at this seeing that what havoc they can wreak with these tiny drones that well delivered so this extends far beyond the military - Dom Nicholls, Ukraine: The Latest podcast

Clearly, attack drones will continue to become smaller, faster, smarter, deadlier, and more widespread. The use of drones is nothing new, especially in light of recent events. We have evidence showing that drones are being used more frequently, in larger operations, and that their capabilities are increasing, and in fact changing the course of major engagements. We might wish it weren't happening, but it is. This is the new face of warfare.

However, the twist is that they will also be available to almost any sufficiently capable organization, including non-state actors such as organized crime and terrorist groups. Anyone with the finances and minimal know-how to buy a few thousand relatively inexpensive drones will be able to do so.

That is a lot of potential actors.

We are accustomed to seeing heavy machinery and heavily trained troops, i.e., expensive multi-million, multi-billion dollar war machines that are only available to governments due to the massive cost, but that will no longer be the case with small but deadly drone swarms.

On Front Burner, Josh Schwarz says, "drones are commercially available and so they can be relatively easily acquired and weaponized by terrorists" and that “even relatively weaker rebel groups or terrorist groups are able to acquire commercial drones maybe from a place like Amazon and and weaponize them.” Further, controlling access to this relatively simple technology is extremely difficult.

Imagine…no we don’t have to imagine because there is now video of the Ukraine operation…drones launched from the back of trucks, the roofs opening to release a swarm of tens or hundreds (and in the future likely thousands) of individual devices, explosive-carrying smart drones, that destroyed Russian planes sitting in the open on the tarmac. The way war is waged has changed and we know the exact time and date it did, with video evidence.

Absolute Paradigm Shift

In the Ukraine - The Latest podcast:

Dom Nicholls, Associate Defense Editor, states: "it arguably shows a new way of warfare which will extend beyond the military". He further elaborates that it is "extraordinarily broad in its reach and what it tells us about the use of power in the future".
Referring to the logistics nightmare for Russia he also says: "this is a lesson for NATO as well... this is an absolute paradigm shift". He adds that Ukraine's forces are "arguably the most innovative armed forces in the world that's the ramifications of what we've seen in the last 24 hours".
On the broad impact of drones, Francis Dearnley states: "drones have not only changed the naval theater in the Black Sea... but this is going to change warfare forever everywhere that all vulnerable sites are going to be in danger of drone swarms".
Francis Dearnley also asserts that the operation has "massive ramifications" for the global balance of power and that Ukraine has "not just got cards, they've changed the game in certain theaters.”

Drones Can Be Built by Almost Anyone

"What struck me most is that I think in some ways it tells the story of the entire war…it really reflects the ways in which drones are transforming warfare. The Russian aircraft that were destroyed in the attack each cost several hundred million, whereas the drones Ukraine used probably only cost a few thousand each. - Josh Schwarz, CBC Front Burner podcast

Hundred million dollar planes, immense value and cost, destroyed by drones worth only thousands. But the key is how they are built, for example, by civilian Ukrainians.

Unprecedented Scale of Production: Josh Schwarz stated that Ukraine is now producing "well over a million drones on an annual basis". To illustrate the scale, he added, "during the entirety of World War II, the US produced around 300,000 aircraft. So I'd argue that the quantity of air power that's being utilized in the Russia Ukraine war is quite unprecedented historically". Mikko Hypponen emphasized that this production is "out of existential necessity not out of any sort of commercial thing".
Diverse Production Pathways, Including Civilian Involvement: The drone production is achieved through "various sources, some crowdsourcing, some government directed pathways", according to Josh Schwarz.
"Ukrainian Made" and Innovation: The drones deployed in operations like "Operation Spiderweb" are specifically described as "Ukrainian made" as mentioned by Mikko Hypponen.

Anti-Drone Technology

The thing we saw last weekend with the operation spiderweb was the kind of escalation that I don't think many were expecting. But the door is now open and we probably will see copycats in the war between Russia and Ukraine and maybe elsewhere - Mikko Hypponen, Three Buddy Problem Podcast

You can already see the changes. Just today, as I write this, I learned that Mikko Hypponen, a longtime cybersecurity leader, has moved on to an anti-drone startup.

Hypponen predicts the "next step" will be the "removal of the pilot all together. It's truly autonomous weaponized drones".

…drones, maybe in swarms, maybe sent out by the thousands, which will autonomously go to enemy territory, look at the targets, and the people they see, choose by themselves if this is something or someone who should be killed, and then make the kill decision autonomously. So [they will] effectively, actually very literally, be robots. That's what's going to happen…" - Mikko Hypponen, Three Buddy Problem Podcast